Nineteen Different Kinds of Scary
by HotPinkCoffee
Summary: Drabbles about the resident drug dealer and reforming thug of the FAYZ, Howard and Orc. Spoilers up through Lies. Complete. Reviews appreciated!
1. Ain't Nothing Hurts a Monster

**Ain't Nothing Hurts a Monster**

-/-

Ain't nothing hurts a monster, Charles Merriman used to think when he was little, watching movies upstairs after his daddy pummeled him. Ain't nothing hurts the monsters, the aliens, the werewolves, the bad guys. Even when they die – just a man in a costume. Even after the credits roll, no kid ever believes the monster isn't going to get back up again and drag them into the closet.

"Beer me," he says to Howard when Howard comes back from wherever he was, dealing drugs or doing fancy council business or setting up another deal for more beer, more beer, always more beer. Orc almost yells at him again when Howard forgets to pop the tab, but he stops himself with a shudder when he feels an itch on his human skin. He brings a gravelly hand to his face, touches, no, nothing, no more rock. The rock isn't still taking him over. The rock is the same size and place it always is, everywhere but his face.

He snatches the now-open Bud from Howard's hand without a harsh word, because while nothing scares monsters, turning into one sure scares a kid.


	2. Bad Neighbors

**Bad Neighbors**

-/-

"Kill it! Kill it! Kill-I'll kill you all! I'll strip the skin off your bones, you skinny little weasel, you and the big gravel moron! You hear me! Let me out or I'll-please kill it! Please just kill-"

Howard wrenches open the door. "Would you guys just shut up for ten minutes down there? We're already eating cabbage mixed with dirt for breakfast, we have no running water and I haven't seen a working television in so long I don't remember what one even _does_, so at least let us have one goddamn minute of shuteye up here!"

He slams it closed and Orc shoves the dresser back into place. By the time it's wedged back into position, cacophonic wails and shouts are coming from the basement again.

Orc glares at the door, as if that will somehow resonate with the girl boy people _thing_ behind it. "Sam doesn't gimme near enough beer for this crap."

"Orc, my man," Howard says with a yawn. "We seriously need to consider renegotiating our stipend."


	3. Entrepreneurs

**Entrepreneurs**

-/-

"So," Albert says, tapping his fingers against his hip as he waits for Quinn's fishers to come back in to dock, "drugs and booze."

"Yeah?" Howard answers, also waiting for someone at the dock, waiting for one of the druggies to come and give him a nice revolver and a tin of rutabaga in exchange for a baggie of cocaine. "You buying?"

Albert snorts a little, his face remaining impassive. "Me? No. Wouldn't touch the stuff."

"Me neither. Best to offload for a profit, am I right? Guess we got that in common, Alberto CEO."

"We don't have all that much in common, Howard."

Howard shrugs. "The only difference between what you do and what I do is that fish and cabbage has a better ring to it than coke and pot. And that you get to be a big man over it. Bet that feels good."

Albert lets himself have a little bit of a smile, still staring out to sea. "I'm not making a black market, Howard. I get people what they need."

"No kidding," Howard mutters. "Weren't for you we'd all be starved ages ago. But don't be thinking I don't get people what they need. Ever ask a cokehead how much they need a fix?"

"Howard, don't pretend you're selling drugs out of the kindness of your heart."

"Yeah? Well, are you selling fish out of the kindness of your heart, or because you want to be important? Me, I do it to stay afloat, but that really isn't your style, Albert. I think you like being the mover and shaker."

Albert has no response to that.

Howard sighs. "Hey, whatever, man. Like I said, weren't for you we'd have starved."

Albert nods. "And if it weren't for you we'd have lost a lot more kids on Sherman."

Howard laughs, a surprised laugh instead of the usual mean laugh. "I'll take that compliment, Moneybags." Praise is, after all, an even rarer commodity than unspoiled milk or candy bars in the FAYZ. "Yeah, I'll take that compliment."


	4. Skinny Kid Running Through Fire

**Skinny Kid Running Through Fire**

-/-

Despite the smoke and flames and pieces of building falling down, all Howard can think about is the day Orc bellowed into Zil's face, "nobody messes with Astrid". And all Howard can wonder is how that know-it-all lying twit ranks higher than he does, running after Orc straight into harm's way.

Because, after all, this fire is sure messing with Howard, and this smoke is sure messing with his lungs.

And who, after all, changes all the piss-stained bed sheets, who got his fingers stabbed and infected learning to sew pants for Orc, who trades his food rations for more beer for Orc, who grabbed a zeke by the tail to get it out of Orc's face? Not Astrid, that's for sure.

Blinded by smoke, Howard stumbles on a piece of debris and falls onto his hands, lungs heaving and convulsing, tears streaming from his stung eyes. No protection, where's his damn bodyguard, isn't everything he does for Orc some kind of insurance policy against getting his ass kicked, even by fire?

No, sure as hell not Astrid doing the leg-work here and reaping none of the benefits. Sure not Astrid.

A frying pan-sized palm supports Howard as he gets back up and turns him around, and it isn't until Howard's taken another thirty steps on shaking legs that he realizes Orc was guiding him back out of the burning alley.


	5. Pretty Dumb

**Pretty Dumb**

-/-

"What do you see in Astrid, anyway?" Howard asks one day, sorting through the dirty magazines he raided from the bottom of the video rental and the house's previous tenant's dresser. They've got enough pornography to last a lifetime, so Howard figures he can hawk this stuff too. Orc wants to keep a few around for the pictures; with the TV out and Orc barely able to read at a second-grade level, centerfolds are the most intellectual stimulation he gets these days.

"Huh?"

"I said, what do you see in Astrid?"

Orc shrugs. "Don't see nothing. She just helped me through math."

"You could have asked me to help you through math."

"Didn't know you were good at it."

Howard finishes stacking the magazines and checks the drawer for twine to tie the bundles together. "I'm good at a lot of things, man. You always say I'm the smart one."

"You're pretty dumb sometimes." Orc struggles to his feet to go out and whiz. The floor creaks under his weight, and Howard eyes it nervously.

"Well, "pretty dumb" or not, it's thanks to me we're living like the princes of the FAYZ."

Downstairs, Drake screams that he'll whip Orc to pebbles, and that little weasel too. "Some princes," Orc mutters.

Howard laughs, surprised at the joke, and raises an eyebrow. "Can't you just beat him into tomorrow and do us all a favor?"

Orc sighs. "Would have to hit Brittney. Wouldn't be right."

Howard grunts something under his breath, but Orc doesn't catch it or really care. Howard may not understand why it would be wrong to beat up Brittney, but Orc does. Orc's not going to hit anyone who doesn't deserve it again unless he's real sure he has to. Howard might roll his eyes at it, but for such a smart guy, Orc knows Howard can be mighty dumb sometimes.


	6. Because If You Don't

**Because If You Don't**

-/-

"Orc? Hey, man, you out?"

Having successfully hawked some weed for another case of Heineken, Howard comes home and clambers up the pile of mattresses and tarps to his friend's side. Orc is slumbering heavily, a line of drool running down from the corner of his mouth to his jaw line. Howard, with great effort, pushes the mountain-like boy onto his side.

"Jeez, Orc, you're not supposed to fall asleep on your back, man. What if you puked and I wasn't here? You're out cold enough you're sleeping through that racket downstairs…"

Howard checks the tarp, as usual, but Orc's bladder and stomach seem to have held up thus far. He swings his legs over the edge of the mattresses, kicking slightly, but he doesn't drop back down to the ground yet. He looks over his shoulder at the broad, gravelly back of the kid next to him.

"You know, Orc, you should treat me better, all the things I do for you," he says, only daring to complain now that Orc's unconscious. "Because if you don't, I just might…"

Stop changing the tarps? Stop doing all the nice things he does? Spend more time away? Find new friends and protectors?

Leave?

"…I might stop bringing you so much beer," Howard concludes lamely, then jumps up off the mattresses and onto a floor slightly warped by his friend's massive girth.


	7. Bears No Relation

**Bears No Relation**

-/-

By the time Howard raids the Perdido Beach Comics Kingdom, almost everyone else has been there first, so all he ends up with are the Free Comic Book Day giveaways and obscure, weird indie comics about characters like G-Man and Punchy. Howard's never been much into comic books, but with the electricity down and time, for the moment, both peaceful and in abundance, it gives him something to do.

Orc likes the pictures, even if he has trouble following the story lines. He doesn't get all the characters coming back from the dead or passing on costumes or traveling through time, though he figures he probably should, given that they're keeping a mutant zombie in the basement. Nothing's weird to them anymore.

Well, except the weirdness of a character that looks sort of like him, a hunk of gravel from an experiment gone terribly wrong. They made a shitty movie about it once, Orc thinks, with that Jessica Alba girl. Feels like years since he saw it, and he didn't pay attention to the rock guy – why would he? How was he to know that someday, Ben Grimm would be vitally important?

"You sure read that Fantastic Four comic a lot," Howard remarks one day, staring longingly at an ad for Mountain Dew in his issue of Animal Man.

"The other ones have too many words," Orc says.


	8. Close Calls

**Close Calls**

-/-

Drake nearly got out of the bike lock and chains today, and probably would have succeeded if Brittney hadn't taken back over and warned them.

Howard tries to hide it, but he's still shaking. He knows exactly how close he, at least, came to a very painful death. While Orc's downstairs Howard sneaks into the bathroom and looks at the faint scar on his chest from where Drake whipped him before. In his mind there are a thousand concoctions of how that would turn out, of that knife-like sting being multiplied into a hundred as he would fall to the floor, screaming for mercy that Drake doesn't understand.

Orc, begrudging because the thing is in Brittney form again and he doesn't like roughing up Brittney, uses the twisted frame of an abandoned bicycle Howard found to pin the thing to a pipe in the basement, before adding back in the usual chains and locks and all the other new restraints Howard could find on short notice. He keeps muttering under his breath about beer, and about Drake, and something about God's punishment, to which Brittney seems especially attuned.

When he comes back up from the basement, Howard's already got an entire six-pack of Budweisers with the tabs popped. He hands them one at a time to Orc before, after and during Orc's efforts to shove the dresser back into place. Orc guzzles them down, spills them down his neck, gets the foamy liquid on his clothes and just doesn't care.

"Orc, man," Howard sighs as he continues to play bartender, "you have no idea how lucky I am that you're around to tie that thing up. I'm so glad you're around."

"Glad you're around too, Howard," Orc mutters, and when his friend looks at him with a quizzical smile, he adds "I get more beer in my mouth when you pop the tabs."


	9. The Things They Won't Do

**The Things They Won't Do**

-/-

Orc rubs sleep out of his one human eye. "…Time is it?"

Howard shrugs. "Dunno. You were out like a light since yesterday. Maybe you should slow down on the brew."

Whether or not that's a good idea, Orc doesn't want to hear it. In fact, he doesn't want to hear anything, since every spare noise is an ice-pick in his hungover head and a kick in his nauseated gut. The thing downstairs is screaming and it makes Orc want to chuck all over the floor.

"Oh, you need to go toss some food at the thing," Howard adds. "It didn't get anything last night."

"Why didn't you feed it?"

"Gee, I don't know, Orc," Howard says with a barely-contained sneer, "maybe because if King Psycho down there were to get his creepy whip tentacle on me, I'd get flayed down to skin and bones before you could even get off the bed? We don't all get to be made out of rock, you know."

Orc glares, and Howard immediately turns pale and looks like he wishes he could take that last statement back. Orc considers punching Howard in the face, seriously considers it for several seconds, but he knows deep down he never would, so he sighs and hoists himself up off the bed. "Find a can of Spam or something and I'll toss it down there."


	10. Face Full of Worms

**Face Full of Worms**

-/-

Wokka wokka wokka weeeoooo.

Pac-Man gets caught by another ghost, Blinky, maybe. Howard curses under his breath. It's hard to see the screen with all that sunlight beating down, with sweat running into his eyes. The stupid FAYZ wall may not have a real sun up there – though who knows, really? – but it sure as hell feels like it.

Wokka wokka wokka.

Howard's directing Pac-Man around a little blue maze and a second later he's sprinting out of the car towards Orc, screaming, cursing, tears running down his face. Albert yells something at him, but he can't hear it, can't even hear his own response "they've got him, they've got him!". He doesn't notice how close he is to the field full of flesh-eating little monsters. He can't even register that the worm in Orc's face has teeth that could just as easily turn on his own boney hands. All he sees is Orc's blood, and Orc's mouth contorted into a scream, and the zeke scrabbling it's horrible little legs against what's left of Orc's flesh. Howard's knuckles clench white over the worm and his heart races.

Thumpbumpthumpbumpthumpbump.

"Brother saved your life, Orc," Howard gasps. "The brother just saved your life."

"I think I broke my hand," Albert wheezes.

Howard's heart doesn't stop that rapid-fire machine gun racing until well after they run into Lana.


	11. Negotiating

**Negotiating**

-/-

"You're kidding me, Sam. Please tell me you're kidding. Why can't it live at your place?"

Sam shrugs. "I live with Astrid and Little Pete. Orc just lives with you."

Howard sneers and rolls his eyes. "Oh, and we're expendable, right? Let me tell you, Sammy, there's no way you have enough 'Bertos to-"

"I know, Howard, I know. Orc doesn't work cheap. You've only said it a thousand times. But see, I already talked to him and he agreed to it for a fair price, so it's just you standing in the way."

"I wasn't talking about Orc, I was talking about me! There aren't enough 'Bertos in the FAYZ for this life insurance!" Howard throws up his hands. "There is no way we're keeping a Drake-zombie psycho _thing_ in my basement! What if it gets out? Orc on a good day fights it to a draw. Me, I'm its appetizer. Can't you just let me run the daycare?"

"Like we'd let you near kids." Sam reaches into his pocket. "I hoped to break the news to you easier, but you weren't at the last Council meeting, so you didn't really get a say."

Sam places a set of keys in Howard's hand.

"We're evicting you from your place and moving you to Sunset Street. Brittney's already tied up in the basement and Orc's been moving his stuff over there for the last hour." Sam almost smiles at that. "Oh, and you're welcome for the ten 'Bertos a week you'll be getting for this."

Howard closes his hand over the keys and chuckles grimly. "Ten 'Bertos for getting maybe whipped to death by a zombie moof? Sam, I've never been happier to have elected you mayor."


	12. Red Light Green Light

**Red Light Green Light**

-/-

Orc's totally calm, but everyone else is terrified. Orc can tell Howard's panicking, off at the intersection throwing his meager weight around and playing traffic cop; Howard's one of those kids who pushes people around to feel bigger and more secure. And security's something that left in the last few hours here in Perdido Beach.

But for once, Orc's not scared. He doesn't have to go home anymore and be afraid that this is the day Child Protective Services takes him away, or afraid that it's the day they leave him to stay. He doesn't have to worry about getting home and answering a question too slow, being distracted, getting himself whooped again. No drunk dad at home to turn household objects into weapons, no stupid bitch mom to preach at him and throw her rosary around.

Just beer and sunshine and Howard playing Red Light Green Light and the complete and utter absence of fear.

_"How did you get this injury on your hand, Charles?"_

_ "Fell on a power drill."_

_ "While it was running?"_

_ "Yeah."_


	13. The Only Decisions Left

**The Only Decisions Left**

-/-

Once upon a time, Howard considered cornrows. Maybe dreadlocks. Not an afro, because then his head would just look cartoonishly large on his small body. Now he stares into the mirror with scissors and a shaver and can't remember the last time he saw a bottle of shampoo. Most of the FAYZ kids are going for dreadlocks or just letting their hair turn into tangled mats of dirt and grease. Howard has a mass of snarled kinks, and with the heat of summer, it's come time to tame it. He slices off as many messy chunks as he can manage on his own. He sure as hell won't be asking Astrid to cut it.

It was once a big decision, hair and clothing, appearances and reputations. It required planning, and committing to anything was a momentous occasion. Since the wall went up and the rules went down, all the decisions fell away. No choice but to adapt and live their lives by whatever rules the powers that be set up.

No electricity? Learn to use candles, wake up early and conduct all business before sundown. No food? Learn to fill the aching hole in your stomach with hamsters and roots and rotten cabbage and threads from ripped jeans. No choices, no stable ground, no predictability, no hope?

Howard thinks about his fifteenth birthday, only a few weeks away.

He hears Orc waking up in the next room, tosses a few hunks of black hair out the open window, and puts the scissors away in the drawer.


	14. God's Punishment

**God's Punishment**

-/-

"Does it hurt?" Brittney asks one day while Orc's bringing her the meager food she's allotted. "The rock, I mean?"

"Not anymore."

"Why did it happen?"

Orc shrugs and pulls a spoon from his rough-hewn shorts. "God's punishment for Bette, I guess."

Brittney swallows the food he spoons into her mouth. Even on her damaged body, the wounds of captivity are clear on her bound wrists and ankles. "Do you think God's punishing me?"

"I don't know. I don't think so," he says, at a loss, as he loads the spoon with more spam.

"I think He sent me on a mission. I think He wanted me to warn everyone about the demon, the, uh, about Drake, I mean." She bows her head after each spoonful. "He sacrificed me to save you all."

Orc, having no such grand purpose, says nothing.

"Orc, why won't you kill me?" she asks as tears clear new pathways down her dirty, bloody cheeks.

He places the spoon to her lips again, feeling that the answer is there, somewhere he can't see it, knowing he can't explain why keeping her chained up is less terrifying than killing her now.

Brittney's still crying when Drake's hateful glare sweeps back over her face.


	15. The Spoils of the Trade

**The Spoils of the Trade**

-/-

"We've hit a new low," Howard says as he scoops a quarter of the tiny can of cat food onto his dirty plate. He pushes the remaining seventy-five percent onto Orc's plate – Orc's fingers are too big and clumsy to just let him eat it right out of the can.

"Rock bottom," Orc says. "How much did you trade for this?"

Howard looks quizzically at Orc, unable to tell if Orc was trying to be funny or not, then shrugs. "A teenth of crystal to some cokehead in the Human League. I told them it was pretty much the same thing. Moron'll snort anything."

Howard chokes down the cat food – what once must have been tuna flavor – and thanks whatever deity may or may not be in the FAYZ that he hasn't ended up with botulism poisoning yet. His stomach cramps, demanding more.

Orc gives him an appraising stare. If anything, all the beer's made Orc gain weight, but Howard's thin as a rail. His dark veins stand out against the jagged angles of his wrist bones.

"You know, I don't know if I even need to eat, being made of rock and all."

Howard raises an eyebrow and looks down at Orc's plate, at the disgusting old cat food that still looks so tempting to his starved body.

"No," he says, pushing Orc's plate across the table. "Better not risk it. I think beer's just empty calories anyway."


	16. Small Pleasures

**Small Pleasures**

-/-

Orc usually doesn't talk much to Drake. There really isn't much to talk to. All the conversation would be dominated by "I'll kill you, you big freak retard! I'll kill you all!" and other such declarations.

"Eat your food," Orc says, shoveling the small amount of food into Drake's reach.

"I'll kill you! We'll see how brave you are when I whip your arms and legs off!" Drake yells, leaning forward as much as he can to eat the food off the floor. Hunger will always trump rage.

"I think I'll just beat shit to death with my face, then."

"Your ugly fucking face? Your ugly human face? Yeah, you just try it. Before I kill you, I'll kill you…" Drake gags down his food.

A smile crosses Orc's 'ugly human face'. He gets all the joy of bothering Drake without having to lift a finger to Brittney, and that's fine by him.


	17. Cutting Deals

**Cutting Deals**

-/-

"You got the stuff?" Antoine asks with a stupid grin. Howard can swear he's drooling.

"Do I usually disappoint?" Howard asks, eyeing up Antoine, Zil and Hank. All three significantly bigger than him. None as smart, thankfully. Hank probably thinks he is. "You have the canned tuna you promised?"

"Sure we do," Hank says, moving in uncomfortably close. "But who says we want to share?"

"You getting your booze says you want to share, dumbass." Howard's face stays strategically blank, even as Antoine shoves him forward and wrenches his backpack away.

"Where's your freak friends to protect you now? Where's the Rockman?" Antoine crows. Giggling, he drags the backpack to the back of the room.

"You gonna go whine about this to moof-master Sam?" Zil says with a sneer. Howard notes that he's holding a knife. "Tell him we didn't pay for your illegal booze?"

Howard rolls his eyes as Hank searches his pockets.

"Hey!" Antoine says. "There's no booze in here."

"Duh," Howard says. "You think I'd actually bring the alcohol here where you could steal it? I dropped it off somewhere. I'll tell you where it is if you stop being morons and actually give me my payment."

"Or we could just pound you here until you talk," Antoine says angrily.

"Yeah? If I go back to Orc with a broken nose your happy hour's going to be cut really short, Antoine."

"This isn't about your booze, Antoine!" Zil yells. "This is about sending a message to the freaks and their friends on the Council."

"And like I said, Zil. You think that little knife's going to do anything to Orc? The only message that'll send is that if you mess with me, Orc's going to beat your head into oatmeal."

"We could just kill him," Hank says with a strange, vicious glee.

"Or you could just give me the tuna," Howard shoots back, then lies, "Orc knows where I am right now. He'll come after you."

For a few seconds, the members of the Human Crew exchange glances.

"I really just want my drink," Antoine finally whines. Disgusted, Hank throws a can of tuna at Howard's feet.

Zil tosses the backpack at him. "Watch your step, Bassem. You can't always rely on having moof friends."

"But I probably can always rely on being smarter than you." Howard taps his temple with a smirk and swings his backpack over his shoulder. "Your booze is in the car door of the red sedan on Sheridan. And thank you, gentlemen, for this respectful and professional business arrangement."


	18. Pitch Black and Lonely

**Pitch Black and Lonely**

-/-

The blackness is the FAYZ is darker than anything Howard's ever seen. He knows some of the kids have Sammy Suns, but there's no way he'll ask Sam for something like that. Howard's fingers hurt from trying to light matches and having the sparks hit his fingers, with no resulting candlelight. It's colder than anything, too.

Orc sits up, beerless, dizzy. His eye doesn't adjust to the darkness, so he scoots against the mattress propped up against the wall and lays back.

"You still give off body heat?"

He hears Howard from somewhere nearby. Feels Howard clamber up onto the futon, hears Howard's chattering teeth.

"Don't think so. My face is cold, though."

"I can't see worth anything."

Orc stands up and pulls the tarp out from under him. He ruined all the blankets a long time ago.

Howard is surprised to feel the tarp on top of him. It's not warm enough, but it's something. He crawls under it entirely and curls up in the fetal position to stop the shivering.

"Can't wait till those walls come down and all this shit's over with," Orc says.

"Yeah," Howard says.

They sit in silence, Howard unable to voice what he knows is true: as soon as the walls come down, Orc goes to jail or to a research facility. But he won't tell Orc that, won't plant another fear in a world full of terrifying ideas and never any answers. So instead he breathes shallowly into the folds of tarp above his face, and faces Orc's general direction.

Somewhere downstairs, Drake and Brittney thump and moan.


	19. Lives with Murderers

**Lives with Murderers**

-/-

Howard lives with murderers. Under the floorboards, Drake taunts and screams at them. Over on the couch, Orc drains another brown glass bottle in silent memoriam for one of the graves in the plaza. Comparatively, selling drugs and booze, including to your best friend, can't be that great a crime.

Howard lives with a saint, too, the one wailing downstairs in alternation with the psycho, but that's not the point. The point is not to be the best and most pure; it's just to get by, day by day, with a little more of your soul intact than the killer in the room beside you.

-/-

-/-

Fin


End file.
